Hercules Profiles CW’s ALIENS IN AMERICA!!

I am – Hercules!!
A sitcom with big laughs, a big heart and the insanely milfy Amy Pietz from writer-producers Moses Port & David Guarascio (“Mad About You,” “Just Shoot Me”), “Aliens in America” tells the tale of a nerdly Wisconsin high school outcast who finds his stock rising after his family hosts a good-natured and devout Muslim Pakistani exchange student.
“Aliens” is paired with “Everybody Hates Chris” and airs opposite “Chuck,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Prison Break” and “Dancing With The Stars.” No one is going to watch it (because, I ask rhetorically, who doesn’t enjoy Mark Cuban doing the Rhumba?), but I do look forward to whatever Port & Guarascio conjure next, hopefully with Pietz in tow.
Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B-plus” and says:

… two likable, unaffected actors (or at least as unaffected as Aliens' heightened reality allows them to be; this show would be a mess in lesser hands). Along with the fellows of Chuck and Reaper, they are guys who just seem kinda...nice. It's a pleasure. …

By all rights, you'd expect CW to cherish and nurture Aliens in America, a cross-cultural fish-out-of-water comedy that received a near-rapturous reception when it was first screened last spring. Since then, however, the show has been subjected to development "improvement" — changes that include a new star in tonight's premiere and, much worse, a shift in next week's second episode to the smarmy that makes one wonder whether the real out-of-touch aliens in America are sitcom writers. … What gives you hope for the long run are the heartfelt moments, from Justin's pain at being an outcast to Franny's transformation from bigot to loving mom. …

… fresh, funny and charming in a tart, sardonic way, one of the best sendups of adolescent angst since “The Wonder Years” and “Malcolm in the Middle” (and perhaps even “My So-Called Life”). …

… winning …

… not your typically brainless network sitcom. It's a topical, sharp comedy … The well-made, provocative comedy mixes the wistfulness of "The Wonder Years" with the prickly outsider humor of the CW's "Everybody Hates Chris," and as one perceptive Northside student noted, it also has elements of "Freaks and Geeks," …

… despite plenty of surface sparkle, there is something discomforting about the show, and not just because it borrows tone and form from other sitcoms with youthful heroes, especially Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle." The show says not only that racism but also bullying, baiting, ignorance, homophobia and other social afflictions can be quite hilarious. Maybe up to a point -- but it's a point beyond which "Aliens in America" unfortunately seems willing to go. It's no fun to laugh and then feel guilty about it. …

Easily the funniest of the new broadcast network comedies … more than another series about a geek. It's a timely look at cultural differences and a timeless depiction of young friendship. It's that rare TV comedy with both humor and heart. …

You’ve seen high school depicted as hell in everything from those John Hughes and Cameron Crowe teen films to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." But you’ve never seen its cruelties and heartbreaks so comically detailed as in The CW’s "Aliens in America," the biggest surprise of the fall season. … Of all the new fall shows, "Aliens in America" is the one worth protecting and nurturing. This culture clash deserves to be a smash. …

… easily the best new comedy of the season. …

… reminds us in ways both satiric and sweet that it is possible to feel like an alien even if you don't belong … The "Aliens" pilot has some of the funniest writing on TV this fall. Its single-camera format makes it earn each laugh, which it does repeatedly. A second episode, also supplied to reviewers, dials back the humor considerably but loses none of the warmth and heart that makes this show so irresistible. … consistently clever and lively, well played and directed, its corners filled with nice throwaway lines and small visual jokes.

And of course mom is a bigot. Because parents are always bigots. Ooops, I mean white-bread American parents. But, fortunately, she will become enlightened and realize that Muslims are actually better than Americans, and that white people generally suck balls, and she'll start to hate herself. It'll be a laff riot!<br><br>
Seriously, I haven't seen it, but it sounds great. Although the Pakistani Muslim sounds a little bit more like Fez from That 70s Show than a real devout Madrasa educated Death to the Infidel Muslim. Hah! I kid, I kid.

You know how everyone likes Fez from That 70's Show, right? Right? What if we make a show that's like...all Fez, all the time. ONLY, we don't have to get that Herve Villachez guy cause he'll ask for too much money, so instead we'll just get some unknown Pakistani guy, it doesn't matter how funny he is, as long as he's brown, talks with an accent and acts clueless it will be just as funny. Plus if we make him Muslim then we can also have a running moral in each story about how Muslims are really just human beings like us, and not all savage, suicide bombing murderers. Because for some reason, all us TV execs think this is some kind of fucking revelation that only we have figured out, and need to teach the retarded masses." - Aliens in America pitch meeting

is solid family entertainment. Listen, no one's going to mistake this for The Office or Always Sunny or Curb. It's not that type of comedy. But there's a real sweetness in the writing and in the characters. I think Adhir Kalyan, who plays Raja, the Muslim exchange student, is going to break out with this role. He's got a great sense of comic timing and his chemistry with Dan Byrd is very natural. The pilot and the second episode are directed by Luke Greenfield who also mixed heart and humor successfully in The Girl Next Door. I think this one's going to be a really pleasant surprise. I know it's been garnering controversy but you have to appreciate the low-key show for what it is. The major networks seem to have gone out of their way to make the fall season Bigger and Better than ever, but high-concept, big-budget shows like Journeyman and Bionic Woman and to a lesser extent, Chuck, don't always work well. This one is a throwback to the sitcoms I grew up watching. It relies a little too much on the fish out of water scenario but overall the show plays like the Wonder Years in post-9/11 America.

Its actually pretty funny. And Neil Patrick Harris rocks the party from the early morn' to the broad daylight. Afterwards I'll watch that Aliens in America show...I'll let you know what I think in a few minutes.

...and it was more of a drama than a sitcom...and it was really good - I liked it. A lot of the jokes were pretty risky, and it touches on a lot of topics you don't often see covered in a sitcom, so I'll keep watching. If it can continue to walk the right side of that line and explore the scenario without getting cheap, preachy, or offensive...this could be a real quality show...which means it will likely get cancelled.

so this means that her last series, the one with the southern stand-up comic, Doofy or Woodroy or whatever his/its name was, and the one before that, the Curse of Webber, are canceled? Because she was great as the other title character on Caroline and the Clitty.